McDonald’s Special Sauce is selling on eBay (for A LOT), teens are giving mirror selfies a hilarious new spin, a ‘shocking’ art piece by a 19-year-old is impacting viewers, and more links on what is trending with Millennials and Gen Z…
1. The $100K Big Mac Special Sauce Bottle
If you missed out on McDonald’s promotion of new Millennial-targeted Big Macs, you may still be in luck—especially if you have $100,000 lying around. This week the restaurant gave away 10,000 bottles of their Special Sauce, and now that they’ve all been snagged, eBay listings have been popping up with unopened bottles with the cheapest being $20. One posting is going viral for featuring a $50,000 bottle (buy-it-now for $100,000!) and a promise of a $10,000 donation to Third World Movement Against the Exploitation of Women. Not wanting to be left out, McDonald’s is planning its own official auction of extra bottles with proceeds going to the Ronald McDonald House Charities. Young consumers are an ad-skipping generation, so marketing tactics that surprise and delight are key to sparking conversation.
2. The New Mirror Selfie
The mirror selfie is a hallmark of social media still holding strong from the days of MySpace. But lately, teens are giving it an updated and hilarious spin. It started when Twitter user @lowkeydeee took a mirror selfie, but replaced his smartphone with a hand wash bottle, sparking thousands of likes and retweets. Creating the illusion that a selfie was taken with any object but a smartphone is now trending, with teens holding up items like plants, lamps, chairs, and even babies. Social media is continuing to evolve with young users’ behavior, and this trend is a fun example of how they’re pushing back on only sending crafted images out to the world.
3. A Teen’s Trending Art on Sexual Assault
A revealing art piece created by a 19-year-old has gone viral this week, for “visualize[ing] the lasting impact that touch can have on an individual.” Emma Krenzer, a student of Nebraska Wesleyan University, was inspired after the Women’s March to create art which speaks to the sexual assault she has personally faced. Using a naked photo of a friend, she covered portions of a female body with paint and included a legend explaining the different colors or “touches from different people in [her] life.” The red color which is explained as a touch from “someone I told no,” has been the most impactful aspect according to a huge wave of responses from social media users. Violence against women is an important social issue to Millennials, with nearly half of 13-33-year-old females saying they are passionate about addressing it.
4. A Model & a Blogger Encourage Body Positivity
After being body-shamed on her honeymoon, one blogger decided to fight back with a body-positive post. Recently, Callie Thorpe posted a photo of herself riding a bike in her bikini which was met with a mostly positive response, but still received “a couple of nasty ones calling [her] names.” Admitting that some ‘really upset’ her, the blogger went back and posted another bikini photo showing off her cellulite—which has over 3,000 likes—and calling on others to do the same. Separately, model Ashley Graham has also proudly posted an image of her “lumps and bumps” this week, with the caption: “I do my best to eat well. I love the skin I’m in. And I’m not ashamed…and you shouldn’t be either.” In our trend The Body Positive, we revealed that 78% of 13-33-year-old females support the movement for body acceptance.
5. Other Links We’re Passing
Here’s what else is going viral: A Harry Potter inspired eyeshadow palette encased in a box resembling an ‘old spell book’ is sparking a lot of interest—continuing the internet’s somewhat surprising interest in Harry Potter makeup. A Korean wire trend maybe be the hottest new thing for nails this year, and a 22-year-old goes viral with a Twitter post that has The Gift of the Magi vibes with a Buffalo Wild Wings twist.
To download the PDF version of this insight article, click here.
